The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced today that it has taken an enforcement action against Troy Mason and his Texas-based company, ZTegrity, Inc., charging them with fraudulent solicitation and failing to register with the regulator as required by the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).
According to the CFTC complaint, from at least October 2019 to the present the defendants used various websites and social-media platforms to fraudulently market their Forex trading pool as a version of a savings account that offered a greater yield with similarly low or no risk. The defendants called the pool “The Black Club” and “The Forex Savings Club,” which their website claimed had received over $460,000 from 411 participants.
The complaint further alleges the defendants induced participation in their Forex trading pool by falsely claiming to “guarantee” to repay participants the funds they contributed to their individual “Forex Savings Accounts” and falsely offered participants “with a 100% certainty” portions of the “substantial profit[s]” to be generated using participants’ pooled funds to trade forex.
Rather, as alleged in the complaint, the defendants knew or recklessly failed to appreciate that no forex trader can guarantee profitable trading, or the avoidance of losses required to guarantee all participants’ contributions, and knew, but failed to inform participants that they had no U.S.-based forex trading accounts.
In its continuing litigation, the CFTC seeks full restitution to defrauded clients, disgorgement of any ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, permanent registration and trading bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the CEA, as charged.